The Gaming Den

Now all we need is a way to harmlessly encode data into human tissue at will. Although a Godellian statement for one computer program won't work on others, so there's no way to render DNA truly unreadable.

http://gizmodo.com/the-pirate-bay-added ... 1818488143

I actually think this is a pretty good idea. Pirate Bay may have finally solved the "how to monetize your website aside from using ads" question.

This has some pretty heavy political ramifications, but the news itself isn't directly political:


https://apnews.com/697536f065e6470eaa5ccfc35061e7ce

https://arstechnica.com/science/2017/09 ... cientists/

Josh_Kablack wrote:This has some pretty heavy political ramifications, but the news itself isn't directly political:


https://apnews.com/697536f065e6470eaa5ccfc35061e7ce

https://arstechnica.com/science/2017/09 ... cientists/

It might have just gotten political. The US might pull out of Cuba and roll back recent diplomatic developments.

Kevin Spacey has been accused of trying to have a relationship with a 14-year-old in 1986, when he would have been 26. Spacey apologized, claiming to have been drunk and remembered nothing of the encounter. He also came out, for the first time.

That first part sucks, and I have no idea how it will develop from here. If it weren't for that, finding out he's gay would have been nice in the sense of "Huh, I never knew that, and it never mattered."

There is more Spacey shit being reported as well,
http://www.bbc.com/news/entertainment-arts-41829484

and unfortunately I've already had people rage about "See, this just proves 'the gays' are just sexual predators! They train themselves on boys and work their way up."

I tried to point out that it implies that straight men 'start on' young girls and 'work their way up'*, but somehow they didn't see the parallel.

*though honestly the 'work their way up' makes no sense to me. Someone who likes young boys/girls isn't actually likely to like older men/women.

But this is unfortunately (but sadly not surprisingly) being used to conflate gay=pedophile.

Someone modified sperm to kill cancer.

And equipped it with magnetically guided power armor to ensure that it reaches its target.

https://www.newscientist.com/article/21 ... cer-cells/

The team then fitted sperm with tiny four-armed magnetic harnesses that allowed them to be guided by magnets. When the sperm hit a solid tumour, the arms sprung open, releasing the sperm and allowing them to swim into the tumour.

Meanwhile, in Cyberpunk news: https://gizmodo.com/this-simple-sticker ... 1821735479

https://amp.theguardian.com/technology/ ... servatives

The google memo saga continues. Text of the lawsuit itself, an amusing read:
https://ru.scribd.com/document/36868836 ... on-Lawsuit#

The lawsuit text is bizarre. Systematic shaming and discrimination does not fly with the fact that despite being a white male conservative (while claiming he isn't, kinda?), he got his salary, a 8 performance bonuses, a promotion and stock options worth an additional $150K in less than 4 years. Yeah, Google sure treated him like shit.

That fucker is also showing up on 'PragerU'* ads on youtube, whining about the evil conspiracy against white male conservatives just for 'telling the truth.'
That he still looks like a creepy, slimy little fucker after being cleaned up for video spots is pretty telling.

*anyone unfamiliar with this outfit: PragerU (or Prager University) isn't a University at all, it's just a 'fun' way to misrepresent its position under the pretense of academia. It's a conservative non-profit that basically does videos with a talking head purporting to present a reasonable or 'both sides' argument on high profile issues. Unsurprisingly, these 'reasonable' arguments are actually the usual reactionary conservative bullshit, just reinvented without the classic firebrand tells. They seem aimed at tricking 20somethings into thinking they're reasonable positions to take with a false academic framework.

God, I hate the PragerU ads on youtube, they're so fucking insulting. One of them literally opened with the argument that adjectives can't modify nouns. Who's the target audience for that, people who failed the first grade?

There are ads on youtube?

Also, as someone who hasn't seen an ad on youtube, what agenda are they trying to push with the "adjectives can't modify nouns" argument? I mean, never mind that that's a key part of what adjectives are for, I can't see what conservatives want to convince people from there.

Well, if you don't have adblock there are.

Oh right. I forgot I had adblock. Protip: use fucking adblock.

Koumei wrote:Also, as someone who hasn't seen an ad on youtube, what agenda are they trying to push with the "adjectives can't modify nouns" argument? I mean, never mind that that's a key part of what adjectives are for, I can't see what conservatives want to convince people from there.

Damn you for making me remember the dumb, but it had to do with how democratic socialism is 'still socialism,' because 'putting a nice word in front of another word doesn't change the meaning.' That was as much bullshit as I could stomach before hitting skip, so I don't actually know that they went on to claim that the Nordic countries are Stalinist hellholes, but that's my assumption.

Ah, I remember that one.

The first one I saw was a nice young south african woman (tagged as a human rights activist) talking about Israel and Palestinians. I had no idea about this group, and it wasn't the typical presentation. But then little buzzwords and the usual agenda started slipping in, and I remember saying 'Wait, what?' So I decided to look up this bunch, and their stance on things. Slick presentation (well, generally. When the group's founders show up, it's less slick, but those don't generally surface as ads on other videos), creepy agenda.

"Democratic socialism" contains two intensely hotly contested definitions such that I would hesitate to use it to actually describe anything except the immediate result of a revolution sparked by a time traveler leaving a copy of the Communist Manifesto lying around Ancient Athens (translated, of course).

"Democratic Socialism" is the tag which Bernie Sanders has used as his brand. While the individual words have debated definitions the combination is a very specific association in contemporary American politics. It's much like how "Compassionate Conservative" meant Dubya supporter despite Dubya's lack of compassion or belief in traditional Conservative values or how "Make America Great Again" means Trump supporter despite Trump's policies have very little to do with Making, Greatness, returning to past values or even much in the way of Americanism.....

Oh, I get that, obviously, I'm just saying that even within, say, the Sanders camp, there's enough of a contest of meaning that I feel very hesitant to use it. But, this is supposed to be about non-political news that makes you cry. Or laugh, but really...

So, non-politics. But because I am feeling contrary, something that won't make you cry. Except at, possibly, how tasteless it is:

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/foo ... -buds-sad/

PragerU actually has a Youtube channel, not just ads, but actual full videos. I looked it up.

The first one I found was an anti-transgender video that started out talking about the match between Fallon Fox and Tamikka Brents, and directly compared this to domestic violence.

And then it went on to make a very comprehensive argument that completely confused pro-transgender positions with second-wave feminist positions. I mean, it was a really great pro-transgender argument about how there are fundamental neurological differences between male and female that cannot be changed by medical science or social pressure. Except it was framed as an anti-transgender argument by basically saying that evil liberals are making boys become girls and girls become boys as part of their anti-family agenda.

Meanwhile, their video on the progressive tax code seems to be arguing that a flat tax would be most fair. Not a flat tax rate, a flat tax amount. Since everyone gets the same amount of benefit from government services, it's fair for everyone to pay the same amount of money. It's actually a great appeal to intuitive concepts of fairness just just happens to gloss over the actual realities of personal expenses. I mean, it's intuitively fair, at a preschool level, for everyone to just pay $10,000 a year in taxes no matter how much they make. So as long as you keep your audience thinking at a preschool level, and don't bring in any complications, it makes the government seem quite tyrannical for imposing progressive tax rates.

hyzmarca wrote:So as long as you keep your audience thinking at a preschool level,

Well, the Republicans are doing their level best to achieve that dream.

The youtube channel is basically the entire thing. Despite calling itself a university, PragerU doesn't offer even the fake degrees that a degree mill scam would. It's the same kind of not-quite-fraud as a person who changes their first name to 'doctor.' AFAICT, all the organization does is produce those up-is-down misinformational videos while hoping gullible people will assume they have academic legitimacy. My favorite title is probably 'Fossil Fuels: The Greenest Energy.' That there is some full-Orwell commitment.

Koumei wrote:Oh right. I forgot I had adblock. Protip: use fucking adblock.

I have adblock. I still get ads on youtube. I don't know how many it blocks though but I get them semi-regularly.